I Heart Cedar Point

John and I took an impromptu vacation to Cleveland to visit Julie and Tommy (and Bob) and to spend the day at Cedar Point, the roller coaster capitol of the world.

Julie and Tommy were so sweet. They cut short their Friday night of Feast of the Assumption (worth its own blog post) partying so that we could get to the park bright and early the next day. Everyone at the party though weighed in on which rides not to miss and waxed poetic about their favorite coaster.

John hates rides, but was a good sport about going with us.

He always loves going to the petting zoo whenever we hit an amusement park. Doesn’t that sheep look happy to meet him? Who wouldn’t be? The bag he’s holding has his knitting in it. He knitted an entire baby’s hat while we rode rides.

Julie and I tried to show this goat how to get a little more food action, but he never really caught on.

Tommy had me completely freaked out about Top Thrill Dragster, a coaster that goes from 0-120 mph in four seconds before climbing a 400+ foot hill and dropping straight down. There was never a doubt about me riding it, but I wasn’t right for about 20 minutes afterwards. I wish I’d taken a pic of the hill, but here’s a link that shows it. The “Top Thrill Dragster in Action” video pretty much says it all.

This is our before picture.

Tommy looks so cool and race car driverish. I look like I’m trying not to wet my pants, which I almost did before we ever got in line. We were checking the ride out and saw a car make it almost to the top of the hill before rolling all the way back down. Didn’t happen to us though.

There was supposed to be an after picture but Julie and John took off with the camera to knit and have a beer.

I swear that I love skee ball almost as much as riding rides. This machine got a goodly amount of my quarters before the night was over.

Cedar Point has lots of non-coaster rides, too, including the fastest merry go round I’ve ever been on. I was actually kind of scared.

The park was beautiful at night with clear views of the full moon shining on Lake Erie from the tallest rides. And of course everyone is your best friend when you wait in line for an hour next to them. One guy and his seven year-old spazzy son were waiting next to us for Mean Streak. His son kept hitting him, and once he got a little close to sensitive areas. Dad said, “Son, don’t hit me in my junk,” which made Tommy and me laugh. Of course the kid spent the next ten minutes asking, “Dad, what’s junk?” Very entertaining.